Gun Sales Soar As Election Nears

PITTSBURGH (CNN) — With less than a week until the election, gun sales are surging.

Sturm, Ruger reported that sales jumped by a third, to $161.4 million, in the quarter ended Oct. 1 compared with the same period last year.

Earnings rose 66%.

The company said late Tuesday that sales are up across the industry, based on FBI data on background checks, which tend to rise and fall along with sales.
Sturm, Ruger also credited the introduction of new gun models, including an AR-15 semiautomatic military rifle called the AR-556 and compact semiautomatic pistols called the LCP II and the LC9.

Both those types of gun have been popular in recent years. Compact pistols are favored for self-protection because they’re suitable for concealed carry. AR-15s and other so-called assault rifles have sold well because gun enthusiasts fear more gun control restrictions, especially if Hillary Clinton becomes president.
AR-15s have been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States, including the massacres at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June.

Asked about Clinton by CNNMoney during an August earnings call, Sturm’s outgoing CEO, Michael Fifer, said it was a unique time because a presidential nominee was “actively campaigning against the lawful commerce in arms.”

Gun enthusiasts and the National Rifle Association have also worried about the future of the Supreme Court since the death in February of Justice Antonin Scalia. He wrote the 2008 decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, that upheld the Second Amendment right to keep guns in the nation’s capital.

The seat remains vacant, meaning the next president could be the one to appoint Scalia’s successor.